If there’s one topic that sets my heart soaring, it’s adventure.
Both of my dogs, Shep and Bella, have helped me realize the art of the adventurous life and my work at Big White Dog Photography is a tribute to every step I’ve taken with them.
To see dogs exploring the great outdoors is to see their most core instincts at play, to see them sniff and watch and claim their territory with their pee is to see thousands of years of coded behavior at work.
Our guest today, Britt Kascjak (KAZ-YAK), is a 30-something pet mum to three dogs — Daviana, Indiana, Lucifer – and two cats, Pippen and Jinx.
She works from home as a digital marketer, freelance writer and professional blogger. She’s the director of content and SEO at BlogPaws, an organization I follow as a dog blogger, and she runs two revenue-generating blogs, Shed Happens, a space for pet parents of rescues, and The Kas Pack, a diary of the adventures she takes with her husband John and their pack.
The Kas Pack struck me as a great reason to chat with Britt, because both Daviana and Indiana are in their senior years so I hoped to pick Britt’s brain about how our adventures have to change as our dogs approach their golden years.
What to listen for
4:48 Time to meet Britt’s pack
14:21 How Britt’s adventures have changed with her senior dogs
18:10 Britt’s favorite adventure with Daviana
25:46 Rating Ontario’s provincial parks for dog-friendliness
32:10 Beer … because, well, beer
Where to find Britt
Angela Schneider
Hi and welcome back to episode 25 of One Last Network, The Art of the Adventurous Life.
If there’s one topic that sets my heart soaring, it’s adventure.
Both of my dogs, Shep and Bella, have helped me realize the art of the adventurous life and my work at Big White Dog Photography is a tribute to every step I’ve taken with them.
To see dogs exploring the great outdoors is to see their most core instincts at play, to see them sniff and watch and claim their territory with their pee is to see thousands of years of coded behavior at work.
Our guest today, Britt Kascjak (KAZ-YAK), is a 30-something pet mum to three dogs — Daviana, Indiana, Lucifer – and two cats, Pippen and Jinx.
She works from home as a digital marketer, freelance writer and professional blogger. She’s the director of content and SEO at BlogPaws, an organization I follow as a dog blogger, and she runs two revenue-generating blogs, Shed Happens, a space for pet parents of rescues, and The Kas Pack, a diary of the adventures she takes with her husband John and their pack.
The Kas Pack struck me as a great reason to chat with Britt, because both Daviana and Indiana are in their senior years so I hoped to pick Britt’s brain about how our adventures have to change as our dogs approach their golden years.
Have a listen.
Angela
Hello Britt Kascjak. How are you today?
Britt
Doing great new. And you?
Angela Schneider
I am pretty good. How’s the weather up in Ontario, my new Canadian friend?
Britt
cold and snowy. The dogs love it. I’m quite happy to curl up by the woodstove.
Angela
Well, we’re talking on January 31. And this isn’t going to air for a little while but cold and snowy in Ontario is just kind of normal, isn’t it?
Britt
Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it’s supposed to get a little colder than usual around here we’re looking at minus 22 Fahrenheit by the end of the week. So even colder than we usually get. But …
Angela
Yikes on bikes, that’s no fun. But I did live in Calgary for 10 years, so I’m not unfamiliar with those temperatures. And it’s best to just stay inside no matter how much the dog needs to go out for a pee.
Britt
Tell my three that.
Angela
I always wanted to teach Shep how to use the toilet. He was having none of it, though. The first question is exactly how many job titles do you have?
Britt
Oh boy. Um, I am the director of SEO and content for blog posts. I am a freelance writer on my own time. And I have a blog about rescue dogs and rescue boat rescue pets in general that I write called Chat happens. And then my husband and I have started a business called the cast pack where we talk about adventuring with cats and dogs. So outdoor travel, camping, kayaking, hiking, and that’s a blog, a YouTube channel and social media.
Angela
That is some serious prolific content generation. How do you time manage?
Britt
I absolutely love the writing part of it. So that part is easier for me. But everything else involves a lot of scheduling. And I’ve luckily had the chance to learn time blocking a little bit better this last year. So I’ve been using that a bit to try and keep myself on track for the tasks I don’t really like.
Angela
Nice. And so one of the job titles that you left out was dog and cat mom.
Britt
Yes, we’ve got five furballs here three rescue dogs and two rescue cats and they keep us so busy.
Angela
Tell us a bit … tell us a little bit about each one of them.
Britt
Certainly so my oldest pet is Daviana. She is my German Shepherd mix. She’ll be turning 15 actually in just a couple days. I had rescued her before I even met my now husband. So it used to be just her and I and then the pack kind of grew from there. She is my baby. People talk about having a heart dog. Well, she’s mine. We have such a close bond. She’s so special and so loving. And then we have our second oldest dog is Indiana. He’s a flat coated retriever mix. We adopted him because my husband was a little jealous of the connection I have with Dav and he wanted a dog of his own too. He had had a dog when we got together but unfortunately she passed away. So he was you know missing that loving and attention. So he chose what he was looking forward to dog and he got the biggest daddy’s boy in the entire world. He is like, I swear when my husband gets home from work, I’m chopped liver, like he is daddy’s boy through and through. And then a year ago we adopted our third dog. He was actually him and his whole litter were abandoned down in Tennessee. He was the runt of the litter. And luckily they found their way to an incredible rescue down there at Baker bridge rescue and he got transported up when the borders were closed. We managed to get him from Tennessee into Ontario. So that took a lot of work. I got to know I got to know the vets that work the border really well. Um, but he is he’s our little Spitfire so he is a German Shepherd. Well, technically he’s a Germanshepherd-Australian cattle dog-Bernese mountain dog but he’s mainly got the first two he’s got the size and the spunk of the catalog and then his coloring makes them look like a little German shepherd puppy.
Angela Schneider
But there’s no Bernese mountain dog making him be lazy and dopey and …
Britt
Oh no. Oh, no. Never stops he’s constantly on the go. He is. I like to tell people that Dav is the dog who made me feel like I could take on any dog in the world love on any dog in the world. India was the dog who made us realize that we could do too and that two dogs can be good friends and then Lucifers the dog who reminded me that there is such thing as too many dogs and we have to learn when to cap it off.
Angela
But you can’t give them away once you got him.
Britt
No and I love him to death. He’s also Mama’s little man. I mean, at night he actually sleeps under the covers with me with his head on my pillow like little teddy bear and I just kind of snuggle them and hold them and he’ll stay there all night. He doesn’t move.
Angela
Oh, yeah, no matter how much of a little devil he is, he’s burrowed his way in, hasn’t he?
Britt
Oh, has he ever.
Angela
And what about the felines?
Britt
Yes, so our cats we have a 14 year old Maine Coon mix. Both our cats are torties. I have a huge weakness for the whole tortie color pattern. So she’s a long haired tortie, and when people say being cool, and they think big, but our little bundle of puffball she looks like a normal sized cat. So she doesn’t look big like a Maine Coon. She just looks like a normal sized cat but it’s all floof so when she got injured a couple a couple years ago sorry, we had to cut her back somehow so we had to shave her down. And we discovered there’s only three pounds of cat under there. She is tiny. But she’s our adventure cat. She’s the one that hikes and would ride in the canoe. And like, as long as she’s not touching the water, we’re not necessarily wanting to get in the water too much. Although last year she did step out of her comfort zone and climbed in the puppy pool for some reason. So I don’t know if we’re suddenly deciding water is a good thing. But …
Angela
Because water is … I’m not a cat person, but I know that water is pretty counterintuitive to cats, isn’t it?
Britt
Yeah. And we settled for like if we’re bringing our canoe or whatever you always just picked her up make sure she didn’t get in the water and then she was comfortable. She was okay with being around it just not in it. But apparently that that tide is changing. So she’s our adventure cat. She thinks she’s the dog. She plays fetch. She comes when you call her name. She walks on a leash. Like she is just an absolute little doll. And then there’s Jinx. Um, we call her the terrorist because if something goes wrong in our house, she’s usually behind it. Jinx is our shorthaired tardy, and for anyone who has heard of the concept of tortatude? Oh, does she embody that so …. She has attitude like nobody’s business and when things don’t go her way, she makes that known. She is spunky, sassy, talkative. We tried putting the cat food up to keep the dogs out of it at one point because Indy likes to try and help themselves to cat food and I caught Jinx throwing food off the shelf. So like if something is going wrong, she’s usually behind it. She’s our troublemaker. She enjoys camping with us as well. But when it comes to hiking, she’s much happier just chilling in the backpack being carried around like the royalty she believes she is.
Angela
Do her and Lucifer get along at all?
Britt
Yes. Oh yes.
Angela
Do they like … are they over in the corner sometimes plotting?
Britt
I joke with my husband sometimes when I see the two of them just alone I’m like we’re in trouble like they are going to plot world domination or something behind our backs. But ya know, we are super lucky. I know a lot of people have myths and myths misconceptions about cats and dogs. Our five all get along great. They cuddle together they play together they clean each other. It’s absolutely amazing to see the bonds that they all have.
Angela Schneider
That’s hilarious I just have this image of Jinx like whispering in Lucifer’s ear “go do this” and then Lucifer would be like “yup.”
Britt
Yeah, that would be our house. That would definitely be our house.
Angela
So we’re mostly going to talk about your adventures with your pets. It sounds like the cats are full on board with doing all of the adventures too. But share some of the goodness first about Shed Happens and The Kas Pack, what all are you generating content about on those sites?
Britt
Yeah, so Shed Happens was my first kind of foray into the pet space. I had gone to school for business marketing. I knew I liked the writing side of it. I had started off writing about small business marketing and helping small businesses and decided to start a pet blog. And the whole focus of it is helping people a decide what type of pet is best for them. Be fine set pet so it walks through like different places you can connect with rescues and shelters and find pets that are waiting for their forever home. And then to kind of top it all off, see it walks these new pet parents through the basics of pet care so that you have a resource that kind of helps you take those first few very overwhelming steps that every pet owner knows that very first pet can be a little much when you don’t know what you’re getting into. And they don’t exactly come with a handbook.
Angela
No. No, I wish I had that back in 2005 when I adopted my first because I was a fish out of water. Holy smokes.
Britt
Oh, yeah, yeah, no, I could definitely have done with a handbook when Dav first came home. She definitely she definitely tried my patience in the beginning, especially with the shepherd intelligence. So I learned very quickly. To this day, she’ll turn on the shower if she wants to play in the water. So she’s quite interesting.
Angela
Oh, that would be fun.
Britt
She keeps life interesting. That’s for sure.
Angela
I turn on the shower and Bella’s out of the room in like two seconds flat. So you go on adventures all around the U.S. and Canada with all five of your pets. What is that like?
Britt
Yes, we and not only do we go on adventures, we go tent camping all across Canada and the US. So we don’t we don’t have trailers. We don’t have an RV. We do everything like the old school tent way. We backpack, we do front country car camping. But all five of ours join along and join the adventure. And it is so much fun being able to share those experiences with them, especially being like of my five pets, four of them are now considered to be seniors. Right? You start to really appreciate the memories that you can create and the time you get to spend with them by getting out there.
Angela
Oh, it’s almost like you know what we’re supposed to be talking about? What? When it comes to Daviana and her being 15. Now, what kind of changes have you seen through the years? And how have you had to make adjustments to your adventuring because of those changes?
Britt
Yeah, so I’ve been very lucky with her in terms of her age and her health, she didn’t really start showing her age until the last couple of years. But recently, we’ve seen her more, she’s starting to move a little bit slower, she’s a little stiffer, she’s sleeping a little bit more. She used to do all the crazy hikes with us and you know, climb up sides of rock faces and everything else. And we’ve had to tone that down a lot. Indy is also a senior so he also has a bit of a harder time with some of those more challenging hikes. So we tend to keep our hikes to more the easy to moderate at this point, so that it’s something that they can do. Um, we also have to keep our hikes a little bit shorter. So all day hikes are no longer a thing. We don’t usually do where you have to hike like hours upon hours, even with all your gear to backpack with them, because it would just be too much for them. And I want them to enjoy it too. But they still love hiking even at 15 years old, 15 year old German shepherd, and she still gets so excited when I pull out her hiking pack. I can’t put much weight in it now because that would be too much on her. But she wants to feel like she’s wearing it. So oftentimes, she’ll actually just be wearing her backpack empty. So she has the feeling of wearing it and it still gives her that feeling like she’s on a mission and she’s got a task to do and it makes her so happy.
Angela
That’s brilliant.
Britt
When we’re on the trails, we have to watch a little bit make sure that she’s not pushing yourself too far because as a shepherd, she also is not so good at personal limits. So if we noticed that, you know, she starts to slow down a bit, or maybe she starts to limp a little bit because her hips are bugging her, we’ll take extra breaks or rest a little bit. We do carry an emergency harness just in case we ever had to. And it allows us to pick her up basically carry her on our back. If one of us ever had to carry her out of a hike or a trail situation. Not that we’ve ever had to use it but better safe than sorry. But she still loves getting out there.
Angela
It’s a good part of everybody’s equipment collection, isn’t it, to have one of those life harnesses I think.
Britt
Oh definitely especially if you have a larger dog so like I get that you know if you’re if your hiking buddy happens to be a Yorkie you could probably just pick your Yorkie up and carry your Yorkie out. But when you have shepherds, you can’t exactly just scoop them up in your arms and carry them out the hiking trail the way you came in. You know she she was 85 pounds at full muscle at her … her largest she’s a little bit lighter now because that muscle started to deteriorate. bitten in her older age, but I mean, I can’t imagine trying to carry an 85 pound dog at one of these hiking trails without some sort of device to help make that a little bit easier.
Angela
My husband is currently carrying Bella upstairs and downstairs when we need him to and she’s a 90 pound livestock guardian dog. So I feel that pain. I mean, there’s no hiking for us right now. And even a few weeks ago, I was looking at him and going, are we going to switch to Pomeranians? Because this is a little much, but we’re not gonna switch to Pomeranians.
Britt
Oh, don’t let size fool you. Remember, we talked about how the spitfire in our house is Lucifer. He’s only 35 pounds. He is cattle dog size but he like its energy and personality far, far beyond those little 35 pounds.
Angela
What has been your favorite adventure so far?
Britt
Oh, that’s hard. Um, I think it would have to be the first time that Dav ever went in a minute. Because I had been hiking and camping with her for quite a while before I ever took her out. And she is a water dog. She is a water dog through and through to the point that she has amazing recall, I could take her off leash … I do around her house all the time. But when water’s involved, I have to keep her on a leash. Because what she does is we put her in a long line and she’ll swim out as far as a long line, let her go even now at 15 she’ll swim as far as the long line will let her go. And then I give it a slight tug. And Dav spins around. So she’ll swim back to shore. Because otherwise she’ll just keep going like she doesn’t stop. She has no concept of like distance and stopping. She just wants to swim. So the first time I took her out canoeing, she was just like, so happy. The look on her face, the excitement, the joy. And then at one point, she decided she didn’t want to be in the canoe anymore. And we were able to let her swim alongside the canoe because we were close enough to shore and like it was just, it was such sheer joy and pleasure in her eyes that that made the best adventure possible for me.
Angela
That’s awesome. You mentioned her eyes. When you look in her eyes today, what do you see?
Britt
I see so much love and so much loyalty. Like she is the most loyal dog I have ever met in my life. She and I have been through a lot. She was a rescue who was very unsure of people, she had gone through some difficult times. And she was scared by strangers, myself included. So when I first brought her home, even feeding her was like put down her dish. And then step back and let her eat at her own pace or let her outside I had to open the door and stand back and let her come and go. And for us to have gone through everything we have over the years, we’ve lived in 12 different houses together. I used to be in the military, so I traveled a little bit for that. And she’s been with me every step of the way, every new house, every new city, every … meeting my husband, and then, you know building that family together and like she’s been there through everything and always always made me feel like I was just the best thing in her world. And I hope that I do the same for her. So I see that love and loyalty every time I look in her eyes.
Angela
How did she react when you brought the husband into the pack?
Britt
Well, I had explained to him when we first started talking that she was the number one important thing in my life. And that if she didn’t like him, it was going to be a tough luck thing. So he showed up on our very first date with a bag of salmon dog treats. And I remember this because it meant that he paid attention that she was allergic to all protein bases except seafood. And so he bought her off right off.
Angela
I’m gonna cry. That’s so sweet. Oh my gosh.
Britt
heat up our first day we took the dogs walking and he brought her treats and she was a little unsure of him at the beginning like we would try and watch a movie and she’d have to be on the couch between us because he wasn’t allowed to be right next to me. But he puts such effort into winning her over and even though she’s mommy’s girl, she loves her daddy very much now so …
Angela
I’m usually the one making people cry. So you’re good. T that story just got me like right in the feel. Holy cow.
Britt
Yeah, I knew he was a keeper then and there.
Angela Schneider
No kidding. Holy cow. At One Last Network we’re very focused on encouraging people to record … to make the memories first. And make sure that you find some way to record those memories because they will be a part of your healing in the days that no one really wants to talk about. What does it mean to you to be able to have all of these adventures and create all of these memories? And do you think they will bring you healing when it’s time for you?
Britt
Oh, they definitely will. And we are very good about documenting pictures, videos, etc, when she’s, you know, enjoying and out there visiting these different places with us. And that’s part of the reason why we do it is because I know I’m gonna want all those. Even as much as … as around home, we had a photographer. A couple weeks ago, we were doing … well I needed new headshots for the blog. And we ended up contacting a photographer who’s also a pet photographer. And we got pet family photos, and we got a family photo with us and all five pets together because I wanted that memory of having them there. My new headshot actually has Dav and Pippin in it. Those memories are so important and it helps you focus on the life you gave them versus on what you’ve lost.
Angela
Give a shout out to the photographer because we believe in professional photography.
Britt
Candra Schank Photography. She’s absolutely amazing. She’s in the Owen Sound area. If anybody hears this and they’re from my area, definitely reach out. I will hook you up because she is awesome. We will be working with her again soon. Hands down. She was so patient with us.
Angela
Do you ever adventure without your pets?
Britt
This year will be our 10th but we did for our first anniversary.
Angela
A long time ago.
Britt
We climbed Mount Kilimanjaro for our first anniversary. So I couldn’t bring all the pets with us to Africa.
Angela
Okay, that makes sense.
Britt
Yeah. So we were literally on the top of Africa’s highest mountain for our first anniversary. It was great. But I don’t Yeah, I don’t think we’ve done anything without them since. Sometimes we’ll leave the cats at home. Because Jinx is a little bit picky about what she does or doesn’t like. And we don’t like leaving our home alone. So Pippin stays with her. And we’re lucky that I have a friend here in the area who is a huge cat lover, and they call her Auntie Katie. And Auntie Katie comes over and plays with them and spoils them and they think it’s the greatest thing so they get their own version of a vacation with Auntie Katie.
Angela
Nice. Um, with Bella being on the injured reserve list, after TPLO surgery people … I … you know, I’ve said to some friends and like that I’m going stir crazy. I’m getting cabin fever. And they’re like, you know, you can go for a walk without Bella, right? Ah, no …
Britt
That wouldn’t be fair.
Angela
Right? Can you imagine her seeing me walk out the door with my backpack and leave her behind?
Britt
Yeah no. No.
Angela Schneider
Oh, I would be the biggest asshole. So what’s next for The Kas Pack and adventuring as we’re getting ready for spring and summer.
Britt
So here in Ontario, the provincial parks are starting to book now. As of today, people can book into the July 1 weekend in the holiday weekend. So we’ve already started booking some of our adventures for the coming year. Last year we started reviewing some of the provincial parks with a focus on pet friendliness so there’s a lot of videos out there that review them and talk about like they have big sites or it could fit a trailer but we are taking the angle completely of how pet friendly is is each park that we go to so are their pet beaches? Is there a pet exercise area how open are the staff to having pets around? That kind of thing? So we did … I want to say three last year and I’ve already booked five or six for this year six I guess if you could one of them is going to be a day trip because it’s so close to one of our others that we’re … we’re gonna go do the day trip because I’ve heard the dog beach is amazing. But it’s a really small park so we can kind of fit it into one day and see everything and film it all. So we’re going to be bringing a lot more of those. We were a little reluctant to get into the YouTube space only because neither of us were really experienced on the video side of things. So we didn’t do a whole lot of them in 2022. But we realized that we really enjoy being able to share with people by video. So there’s going to be a lot more video content coming out in 2023. That’s for sure.
Angela
Awesome. It is very difficult for a writer to transition to video. I get it. It’s one of my struggles as well. And are you doing national parks in there too, because it, I think it’s important to point out that in Canada, most of, most or all of the national parks are dog friendly, but here in the States, they aren’t. And most … dogs aren’t permitted on most hiking trails in the national parks.
Britt
Yeah, so up here most hiking trails and most tent type campsites or trailer campsites allow for dogs, not so much the roofed accommodation. So yurts and cabins. That’s something that even just the provincial parks here in Ontario have just started to allow, they have a select number that they’re now allowing dogs into, but they’ve been very specific than it is dogs only and a maximum of two. Oh, so cats still can’t go into these roofed accommodations. But it’s a step, it is a step forward. I’ve been debating doing maybe a solo trip just Dav and I to one of them late in the fall into the early winter stage of the chair. That way, we don’t have to … because the whole two dog thing and I was having three, I don’t want to leave one behind. But we do often, especially with our two senior pets, we do often do solo trips. So like last year, I did a solo four day trip with Dav, and my husband did a solo three day trip with Indiana at one point. So it gives us that chance to have some one on one time, which is so important. Knowing that and like you don’t want to talk about it this way. But knowing that that time is limited, it’s so important to be able to have that time with them. So I will definitely be doing at least one solo trip with her. And I think we might experiment and try out some of these roofed accommodations that previously she couldn’t stay at.
Angela
When Britt Kascjak is queen of the world and designing her own provincial parks, what kind of accommodations would you like to see for senior pets?
Britt
I would love to see some of the cabins and yurts being a little bit more open. I mean, my girl loves tent camping. But people who maybe have a slightly older dog who hasn’t tried camping before and isn’t so sure about it. Or if the … I know a lot of pet parents, if they haven’t raised their dog to be a camper, the idea of keeping your dog in a tent is very concerning. Because let’s be honest, even a small dog could work their way out of a tent quite easily if they wanted to. And then there’s the whole aspect of like, we’re in bear country here. So you know, people who aren’t as familiar with that are as comfortable with that, that could hold them back and I want to see there … I want there to be as many opportunities as possible for people to get out and have these adventures and make these memories with their pets. So I would love to see more of a widespread availability for them. So like anybody could trailer or tent right now with a pet. But because it’s so limited on the roofed accommodations, it’s like winning the lottery to book one. People literally will … there’s bots out there right now that will charge and people pay extra money for the computer bot to come in and try and get it before people can because they can respond in the system faster. And it’s a whole thing. And all that tells me is that the demand is there. And that it’s something that we need to open up a little bit more for pets. So like a lot of the parks will have 5, 6, 7 yurts and one will be pet friendly. Oh, yeah. I think we’re at a time and place in our society where it used to make sense for it to be that way. But now that the majority of people are traveling with their pets, it’s time to flip it a little bit and realize that I understand some people still want a pet free one if they have pet allergies or whatever. But that should be the smaller number versus the other way around at this point.
Angela
It just struck me as odd that so many places are still not accommodating to people who want to travel with their pets.
Britt
Yeah, I find some industries are more than others. So a lot of restaurants aren’t at least in our area here. But I find breweries are amazing about it. So if you can find a brewery that has food. I don’t think I’ve come across a single brewery yet that has a patio and didn’t allow dogs.
Angela Schneider
And yay. Because beer.
Britt
And I mean, my husband’s a craft beer blogger. That’s what he does on the side, so shucks, I guess we just have to go to the breweries learn dogs?
Angela Schneider
What’s your favorite kind of beer?
Britt
I’m an IPA girl.
Angela
Huh? Okay. I’m a stout kind of girl.
Britt
My husband loves his stouts. I also love my sours. He likes some of them. But I often so he what he does is he goes out and he buys like, I don’t know, 1015 cans of beer that are all different types, all new beers. He hasn’t tried. He brings them home. And he’ll take a sip and go to do his review. And it’ll be like a sour or something like that. And he always looks with every beer, even if it’s like a stout or something. And I’m not as big on the state supporters. He’ll always let me have a sip. But when it comes to like the sours and stuff like that, he tries to get his notes down really quickly, because he knows when I take a sip that it’s not coming back to him. Yeah, it’s gone. It’s gone. It’s gone.
Angela Schneider
Too funny. So Brent, what is one tip that you would leave with our audience, about adventuring with senior pets.
Britt
The biggest thing I will say is don’t allow their age to stop you from trying. You don’t have to go, you know, big and bold and all out to get out there and still make those memories. So like I said, we can’t do those big, heavy, difficult trails with dad anymore, but we can still get out there and make memories and enjoy the great outdoors together on an easy and moderate trail that she can handle. So don’t don’t let that be a limiting thing.
Angela Schneider
And sometimes just sitting by the campfire is all you need.
Britt
Yes, she loves the campfire.
Angela Schneider
Bright thank you so much for joining us on The Last network. It’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you.
Britt
Thank you so much for having me. It was great.
Angela
“Those memories are so important and it helps you focus on the life you gave them versus on what you’ve lost.”
Boom. Mic drop. Thank you, Britt.
You couldn’t have described more concisely or more beautifully why it is so important that we enjoy every step we take with our pets.
Every adventure is a memory to be cherished and something to hold onto to comfort us in our days without our best fur friends.
Their lives are too short but, I believe, they are here to give us such valuable life lessons.
In a 2016 blog post on CenterforLoss.com, Dr. Alan D. Wolfelt writes:
“Memories are one of the best legacies after the death of a pet. Talk about and embrace these memories. Your pet entertained, comforted, frustrated but always loved you. Remember those times. If your memories bring laughter, smile. If they bring sadness, cry. Remember, though, memories made in love can never be taken away.”
Next week, I sit down with my good friend Darlene Woodward of Pant the Town Photography in Georgetown, Massachusetts. She’s a pet loss grief specialist and one of the founding members of One Last Network.
Together, we explore that great unanswerable question: how soon is too soon to get another pet? It’s a sensitive, confusing topic and while we may not have the answer for you, we share how it worked for us.
Until next week …
